Tom Goes to the Mayor: "Friendship Alliance"Review

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John C. Reilly befriends Tom, and shares his sauce.

By Larry Carroll

A rat-poisoned midget, a hair-covered wolf baby, a restaurant that serves nothing but sauce, and Oscar nominee John C. Reilly as himself. Welcome to "Friendship Alliance," the latest episode of the deliriously deranged Tom Goes to the Mayor.

When Tom Pretters (who has gotten to the point where even he spells his own name wrong) signs up for a MySpace-like web site called "Friendship Alliance," he learns that he has two friends in this world: the diminutive pest Gibbons, and Talladega Nights star Reilly, whose IM features a grumpy-looking photo of himself and three smiley faces at the end of his text.

"Hi Tom - You look like a super fun guy," the Boogie Nights actor writes. "Let's meet up and hang out. How about Sauceman's at 7?"

We should all be so lucky as to get an invite to share sauce with John C. Reilly. Long respected as one of Hollywood's most endearing character actors, he recently broke through with memorable work in Chicago and, this weekend, unveiled his improv chops with Will Ferrell in Talladega. Paired with that film, this new episode of TGTTM shows an actor who is refreshingly happy to laugh at himself - while we do the same.

Simply seeing Reilly as a blue-and-white, intermittently-animated resident of Jefferton is crazy enough, but he pours himself into the role so wholeheartedly that he gives Gary Busey a run for best cameo of this season. As he bangs his fists against the table like a baby, insisting on picking up the bill, it's hard to not imagine that he's had similar meals opposite Meryl Streep.

Some of the best moments on TGTTM are the live-action bits, and this episode brings us a gag-inducing, slime-filled ad for Sauceman's restaurant. Huge tubs of thick sauces are plundered by mysterious hands (getting sauce all over themselves as well), while a perky theme song fills the soundtrack and cheery voices say "Where do you go to get all that sauce?" and "Meat Not Included." So, Tom brings his own meat to the party (and really, what great host doesn't?) and he hits it off immediately with the Gangs of New York thespian.

Speaking of gag-inducing, the episode also gives us Joy-Minder-Pepper-Peters, Tom's hairy step-grandchild who seems to horrify no one but the viewers. The new is mixed with the old as well, as running gags like Tom's subtitled words (he pronounces "bouquet" with a hard "t") and the old-school headset for his phone, are also briefly glimpsed.

When John C. Reilly goes deer hunting and shoots Gibbons - who just happens to spend his free time riding on the back of deer - Tom and The Mayor get caught up in a homicide. "I get up real close to the thing, and Tom, I think it's a small man," a freaked-out Reilly explains. "Sort of like child-sized, but it had a beard - a really horrible-smelling beard!"

One thing that doesn't stink, however, is the episode itself. Even without an appearance by Joy and the Married News Team, this is episode finds itself within the top third of TGTTM episodes ever produced.

Creators Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim clearly have some sort of brain damage - it's impossible to imagine any other way they could come up with such deranged material - but we should all be so lucky. Rather than sitting at home, banging our own heads with a hammer, it sure is a kick to be transported into that Tom frame of mind once a week, for fifteen minutes at a time. Watching the show is kinda like sniffing Crazy Glue, without the nagging possibility of permanent brain damage.